by AS Teague
Piper
“I don’t know, he’s just…different.” I took a sip of my water, wincing as it burned on the way down.
Hampton looked up from his lunch that was spread out in front of him and asked, “You okay?”
I shook my head and tried another small sip. “I feel like crap.”
“Maybe it’s all that singing you’ve been doing lately,” he teased.
We’d just finished triaging a patient and had escaped to the doctors’ lounge for a quick break and I’d just told him about how Lawson had teased me the other day, actually making a joke instead of his normal surly attitude he’d had toward me. It had been a few days since then, and things in the house had been strange.
But in a good way.
I was feeling less like I was behind enemy lines and more like I was actually welcome and wanted in Lawson’s house.
He pushed the plate away and leaned back in his chair, scrubbing a hand over his face. “So you and Lawson actually spent time together? Without him chewing your ass about something?”
I nodded.
We’d watched the movie I picked and I’d even managed to get an ‘I told you so’ in when I’d caught him wrapping up in the blanket I’d bought for the couch. Then we’d gone our separate ways and I hadn’t seen much of him since. But he hadn’t grumbled about my clothes in the bathroom or my socks by the door.
I wrapped my arms around my waist, trying to still the shivering. “I still think it might be a good idea for me to look for another place to live. I’m probably making him miserable.”
“I’m sure you are, just not the way you think,” he muttered, grabbing his phone from the table when it chimed.
I cocked my head. “What do you mean?”
Lifting his head, he gave it a shake. “Nothing. Hey, you wanna grab dinner with Smith and me?” He waved his phone in my direction. “Whatever he had going on tonight got cancelled.”
Checking my watch, relief washed over me when I realized my shift was almost over. Only another hour of feeling like I was going to die and then I could go home. “I’d love to, but I’m exhausted. I need to get in bed.”
He eyed me suspiciously. “Yeah, you do look terrible. How long have you been sick?”
I rolled my eyes. “Thanks a lot. Just a few days. But I can’t miss any of my shifts. I’ll be fine, just need some Tylenol, I think.”
I pushed out of my seat, my muscles protesting. I was achy all over, and the movement had caused my head to pound even harder. I groaned and began coughing.
Hampton stood. “Go home. Get in bed.”
“I only have an hour left,” I protested. “I’ll be fine.”
He gave a firm shake of his head and narrowed his eyes at me. “Doctor’s orders, Pip. Go home.”
“Fine,” I mumbled before pulling my purse out of my locker. I trudged slowly to my car, each step more painful than the last.
The image of my bed was the only thing that helped me get home. I was too weak to even make it down the hall to my bedroom, instead opting for the couch. I’d fallen onto it and passed out before my head had even hit the pillow.
The door opened and then slammed shut, startling me awake. I tried to sit up, but my aching muscles wouldn’t cooperate. I opted to roll to my side and through sheer force of will cracked my lids open to see Lawson striding through the living room.
He flipped on the light, but skidded to a stop when he spotted me on the couch. “Piper?” His brow drew together, and he changed his direction, coming to crouch beside me.
My throat felt like it was made out of sandpaper, but I managed to croak, “Hey, Lawson.”
“You look like a burrito. Are you okay?” His voice was laced with concern.
I shook my head, the movement pure agony. “Not feeling great. But I’m okay. Just need to nap.”
His eyes roamed over my face and gently, he placed the back of his hand on my forehead. “Jesus, you’re burning up.”
“Yeah, think it’s time for more medicine,” I agreed, the chills wracking my body causing me to shiver uncontrollably. “You mind getting me some water to take it with?”
Lawson pushed to his feet. “You need to go to the doctor.” He pulled the sleeve of his shirt back and checked his watch, cursing. “They’re probably closed by now.” He dropped his arm and pushed a hand through his hair.
“I’m fine. I promise. Just get my water and let me sleep it off.”
He strode away, and I let my eyes shut. They were too heavy to keep open anyway. I could hear him in the kitchen, rummaging through a drawer before the refrigerator door opened. A few seconds later, his footsteps became louder as he returned with my water and pills.
I managed to pull an arm out of the stack of blankets I was under and took the cup of water from him. It burned going down, as though it were acid, and I winced.
“You need to be seen. Let me take you to the hospital,” he pleaded, but I shook my head.
“Here I thought I was the doctor and you were the computer guy.”
With a heavy sigh, he took the water from me and set it on the coffee table.
“Hey, coaster,” I grumbled.
He shook his head. “Damn, you’re stubborn. Even sick, you’re a pain in my ass.”
He pulled the blankets back up around my neck, and over the tops, rubbed my arms, creating a friction that helped ease my shivering.
“Thanks, Law. I’ll be fine when I wake up,” I promised.
He gave a curt nod of his head, his forehead still lined with worry. I watched as he shuffled over to the other couch and settled in, pulling his phone from his pocket and putting his wireless earbuds in.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Feel like working from the living room today,” he replied. “Get some sleep.”
“Kay,” I murmured, letting my eyelids flutter shut.
“Piper?”
His voice was soft and sounded far away.
“Yeah?” I croaked, the words barely more than a whisper passing through my dry lips.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I tried to sound convincing, but I knew as soon as the words came out that they didn’t hold any weight.
I felt like I was dying. My entire body ached worse than it had when I’d fallen asleep and the shivering had become uncontrollable.
The couch squeaked as he pushed away from it and I could hear his footfalls crossing the room, but my eyelids were too heavy to lift. “Don’t get too close.” I tried to keep speaking, but was interrupted by a cough that wracked my body. My ribs ached from the constant coughing.
The couch depressed with his weight as he ignored my command and sat down beside me. I tried again to tell him to leave, but he just grunted and insisted on sticking a thermometer in my mouth. We waited in silence until the shrill beeping went off.
“Fuck.”
I licked my lips, but my tongue was just as dry as my lips and did nothing to wet them. “What is it?”
His response was a gruff. “I’m taking you to the hospital.”
“No!” I cried. “Just give me some more Tylenol, I’ll be fine. I’ve got my last shift in a few hours.”
Pulling me up gently by my arms, he pulled the mountain of blankets from my body and slipped a jacket around my shoulders. He ignored my protests and slid an arm under my legs, carrying me out of the door.
I tried to wrap an arm around his neck, hoping to shoulder some of my weight, but my entire body felt like Jell-O and I was too weak to do more than rest my head on his shoulder. But still, he carried me to his car like I was nothing more than a sack of flour. Gingerly, he placed me in the passenger seat and buckled me in before going back inside to retrieve a blanket to wrap around my shaking body.
“I promise, I’m fine,” I insisted. He didn’t acknowledge that I’d spoken, so I wondered if maybe I’d simply thought it.
I struggled to keep my eyes open on the drive to the hospital, finally giving in to the fatigue
and letting them close.
“Piper?” Lawson called again, placing his hand on my knee. I tried to respond, but it came out as nothing more than garbled noises.
His fingers squeezed my knee, his hand still there as I drifted off to sleep again.
18
Lawson
I’d seen dead bodies before.
I may be a computer geek, but I was a computer geek who worked in security.
So, yeah, I knew what people who just moments ago had been living, breathing beings but had drawn their final breath looked like. Their skin was ashen, gray, a color that Crayola would certainly never make a crayon for. And sometimes their bodies would spasm, giving the illusion that they were breathing, even though their hearts were no longer beating.
And that was what Piper looked like, lying on my couch under a pile of blankets.
I’d sat there for a couple hours, watching her sleep after I’d come home from the office, but eventually had grown tired and nodded off. When I’d awoken, I’d been shocked at how sick she looked.
And now here I sat, in the chair across from her hospital bed as she lay motionless. I refused to fall asleep again, worried she’d be even worse the next time I woke up. Although, I wasn’t sure how much worse she could be. She was hooked up to machines that were beeping and monitoring her heart rate, her breaths, her oxygen level. She had IVs in, giving her fluids, nourishment, antibiotics. She had a mask over her pale face, blasting oxygen into her nose and mouth, forcing it into her inflamed lungs.
The beeping was relentless, nonstop, maddening.
And it was the only thing giving me comfort.
I counted the seconds between each of her breaths. I stared at the heart rate monitor, noticing that in between each breath it would dip. My gaze was glued to the oxygen level, where it sat at an unhealthy eighty-nine percent. It should be at least ninety-three percent, according to the doctors. But I welcomed eighty-nine.
When we’d arrived, she’d been barely conscious, her breaths ragged and labored. Her beautiful lips, the very ones that a few weeks ago I’d nearly kissed, were a shade of blue that should have only belonged on someone who’d been in the Arctic for a month. The nurses had immediately put an oxygen mask over her face, shoving me into a corner as they worked to assess her.
They’d barked out vital signs: Heart rate 150 beats per minute, dangerously high. Temperature 106. The reason I’d scooped her up and brought her to the emergency room. Oxygen saturation: seventy eight percent… Blood pressure 60/40.
I’d been concerned for a couple days while Piper had insisted she was well enough to go to work and school. She’d barely made it in the door last night before collapsing onto the sofa, but still, had insisted she’d just had a long shift and needed a minute to catch her breath.
But when the nurses started throwing around words like “rapid response team” and “crash cart”, my heart had plummeted, and I was downright terrified. Whatever this was, it was more than just a fucking cold like she had insisted.
It had taken what felt like hours to get her stabilized. I’d stood there in the corner of the triage room, watching as they injected her with medicine and took enough blood samples that I was convinced they would need a blood transfusion. Several different doctors had come in all at once, all of them dictating out loud what they thought it could be. A nurse had questioned me, and I’d told them every detail I could remember about how long she’d been sick, what her symptoms had been. When they’d finally stabilized her enough to move her to the ICU, they’d tried to refuse to let me follow, since I wasn’t technically immediate family.
Tried being the key word.
There was no way in hell I was letting Piper out of my sight.
The last time I had, our lives had been turned upside down and we’d lost Jack.
And fuck me if I was going to lose her too.
I’d had a few tense words with one of the doctors, but he knew Piper and Hampton, knew who I was, and had ordered the nurses to let me follow.
That was nearly two days ago and here I still sat, beside her bed, making sure that everything that was being done to make Piper healthy again was working.
So, yeah, I’d take that eighty-nine percent. And I’d sit my tired ass right here until it was back up to where it was supposed to be. And then, when it was, it would be me who would take her out of this hospital.
Her perfect lips were nearly pink again. And I swore to myself, when she was better, and I took her home, I was going to taste them. It was time for me to stop being a fucking pussy.
“Lawson.”
The voice startled me out of my thoughts and I turned to see Mrs. Kelley coming in, her face red and blotchy as though she’d been crying recently. Alarm bells went off in my head and I jumped to my feet.
“What is it?” I asked, unable to keep the worry from my voice.
She shook her head and attempted a smile. It was a feeble attempt, but it set me at ease enough to settle back into my chair. “No updates, honey. Why don’t you go on home and get some rest?”
It was about the millionth time someone had suggested it. I’d bitten Hampton’s head off when he’d said it to me this morning, but I managed to rein it in and told Piper’s worried mother, “I’m not leaving.”
She smiled again, this time genuinely, and settled onto the edge of the bed.
She patted my shoulder. “You sound just like Hampton did that day Piper fell into the pool.”
I frowned. “You mean the day he almost drowned her?”
She laughed. “Yes, that day. Jesus, you kids kept me on my toes.” She dropped her hand from my shoulder and reached up to smooth Piper’s hair away from her face. Piper stirred, and I pushed up in my chair, watching her carefully. Her eyelids fluttered, as if she were dreaming, and then she stilled again. I sat back again, not able to relax.
“Piper thought it was Hampton who pulled her out that day.” Her gaze traveled back to me and she took my face in, her eyes not quite as blue as Piper’s, but beautiful nonetheless. They were full of love and warmth, not just for her daughter, but for me and my siblings as well. They were the same compassionate eyes I saw every time I looked at Piper. They were also the same eyes that had never let any of us get away with anything, because Mrs. Kelley seemed to always know everything. Even as adults, that didn’t seem to have changed. “Why didn’t you ever tell her that it was you?”
I shifted, suddenly uncomfortable with the direction of our conversation. I didn’t want to talk about that day, about the way the fear had gripped me, an icy hand that had squeezed my heart. I didn’t want to remember how I had struggled to pull her out of the water, my young muscles weak and pathetic. But most of all, I didn’t want to remember how Piper had gazed at Hampton when she’d finally come to, clinging to him as though he were her knight in shining armor. I’d been so jealous in that moment, the first time I’d ever really experienced it, that I’d been an ass and stormed off instead of insisting on going to the hospital with them like I should have done.
I lifted a shoulder, trying to seem nonchalant about it all, and murmured, “It didn’t matter who saved her. What mattered was that she was okay.”
Her eyes shimmered, unshed tears threatening to escape, and pressed her lips together. “Life’s never been the same since we lost Jack.” She reached out and patted my shoulder again. “Thank you for always taking care of my baby.”
I wanted to deny it, but the words would be lies, and she would know it.
I pressed my lips together and nodded, looking away from her and up at the monitor.
Ninety percent.
“Mom?” Piper’s gravelly voice choked out, barely more than a whisper.
Our heads snapped to her small figure in the bed and I leaped to my feet, coming to stand directly next to her head.
Weakly, she turned, but kept her eyes closed. “Hampton?” The relief that had just been coursing through my veins morphed into disappointment.
Hampton. Of course.
Her fingers twitched as she raised an arm in my direction. “Hampton,” she croaked again.
“No, honey, that’s—” Mrs. Kelley started, but pressed her lips together when I shook my head.
“I’ll get the nurse.” I mumbled, “And Hampton.”
Mrs. Kelley grasped Piper’s hand in her own as I made my way out of the room, the relief of knowing that Piper was going to be okay warring with the crushing disappointment that she wanted my brother instead of me. Again.
19
Piper
“I’m fine, Mom,” I muttered.
I wasn’t fine. I felt like I’d died and been brought back to life as Frankenstein. Every part of my body hurt. I couldn’t take a deep breath without feeling like I’d inhaled fire. And the coughing. I was fairly sure I had managed to break ribs by hacking alone.
My mother didn’t acknowledge my protest, just continued to fluff my pillow under my head. “Honey, I just don’t understand why you have to be so damn hardheaded all the time. Lawson told me you refused to go to the doctor.” She shook her head, her eyes full of disapproval.
“Of course he did,” I griped.
Mom’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, don’t you get your ass on your shoulders about that boy. If it weren’t for him, you’d probably be dead right now.” The moment the word passed through her lips, she paled, her eyes traveling back nine years.
She was right. If it weren’t for Lawson, who knows how sick I’d be by now.
I groaned, the action making my throat scream in protest. “Mom, I’m sorry.” Mustering every ounce of strength I possessed, I reached for her hand and laced my fingers through hers.
I watched as she swallowed hard and came back to the present. “He’s always taken care of you,” she murmured, rubbing her thumb along the back of my hand.
“Who?” I asked.
“Lawson,” she replied simply.
I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I couldn’t bring myself to argue with her. I was too tired, and she was too fragile. I couldn’t imagine the way she felt, seeing her only living child unconscious in the hospital bed for two days.